I am finding the recent posts in this thread to be quite interesting. About a year ago, I attempted to use Raw Therapee on my Mac, because I had read a number of positive comments from knowledgeable people. To say the least, the experiment did not go well. Leaving aside stability issues, the user interface was incredibly complicated. Still, I might have been willing to forgive this, if the results had been superior to other raw convertors that I had used, but they were not even as good. One might chalk this up to inexperience with the program on my part, but I can almost always get satisfactory output from new software in fairly short order. Or it might be attributable to the fact that RT is not optimized for the Mac OS. But I see it as evidence that that RT was not nearly ready for general use. Judging from some of the latest comments from Windows users here, the situation does not seemed to have improved.

I would also echo a previous endorsement of RPP. It is simply the best raw convertor out there and it is worth running a Mac simulation mode on Windows just to be able to use it IMO. But RPP is not a comprehensive photo editor, which is what so many people want nowadays.

RT's development is chaotic, unplanned and uncontrolled, Michael, and it really is a problem. More functionality gets shoe-horned in at every turn, while there's no obvious rhyme or reason to bug-fixing, consolidation or the bedding-in of stable builds/designs - no practical version control that I can see (I keep a regular eye on the Google Code issues list) - and the documentation is desperately out of date as a consequence.

I don't mean to offend, Michael - I've huge respect and affection for many involved in RT - but I've been on the RT forum for years now (although you may have noticed I'm no longer active there), I've seen how RT has developed over the years, and - as a "typical" longstanding and very experienced end user - I have to tell you that it's not remotely the application that it could be, or indeed needs to be.

What it is, is shambolic. I've tried on numerous occasions to make these points, but have been dismissed out of hand because I'm not a dev (even though, as I've been saying for a long time now, development which is controlled only by devs is a recipe for exactly the kind of mess RT is currently in) so I've given up - both on trying to make these points stick on the RT forum, and on the software itself - because these days it's pretty much the poster child of poor design.

Usability matters, and RT is desperately lacking in that regard - it's approaching Photivo in terms of confusing complexity, but at least Photivo is quite up-front about its "steep learning curve", whereas RT aspires to a degree of user-friendliness and - to quote the website - "efficiency", that it simply doesn't deliver on.

And the problem is nothing to do with maximising limited resources, Michael - indeed, more control and more formal planning would allow for those limited resources to be used far more effectively and efficiently than they're being used now, where devs are lurching from task to task in an apparently random way, and dealing with what they feel like doing: even in an open source project that's no way to do things, as I've said all along.

deejjjaaaa, "others" is a very broad term, there is many different levels of "others", but they all are welcome to participate in the project and contribute - either by sharing thoughts on improvement and then actively participating in testing and writing documentation or even coding...

others exactly those who do not participate in the project... I mean RT is a wonderful thing for participants who can express their ideas in actual code that works... but it is easy to be carried away a little bit...

How long would one have to wait to get a bug fix or any new feature to be implemented in Lightroom? This is with Adobe's resources.Within RT - in some cases it is literally next day, and usually between 1 to 5 weeks!

that is not the point... look at RPP... it is just 1 coder and for quite some time, Iliah Borg, right... I am yet to see a bug that actually stops somebody from using it... because they do not want to do everything... but what they do they do good... fits like a second skin... simple... people go through pain to run OSX in VmWare to use it.. can you imagine somebody going through pain to use RT... that's it...

RT is *not* trying to be Lightroom. I find RT as a versatile tool-set that one can use and improve without waiting for the development cycle of Lightroom.It took Lightroom 3 years to go from version 3 to version 4. RT changes are available in real time to those who compile code themselves, and you get to observe project as it is evolving.So when you are comparing RT to Lightroom, it becomes an unfair comparison as RT is still in transition state being further polished to be more accessible to a broader user base.

About the highlight reconstruction - it is significantly superior in the version 4+ vs any prior versions. There are 4 methods available, try Color Propagation - the slowest but the most powerful.You need to use highlight reconstruction in combination with Highlight recovery and in some cases (depending on camera model and its color matrix or a DCP profile) raw white point.Some time ago the use of input camera ICC profiles was also made compatible with Highlight Reconstruction via a checkbox in Color Management, where ICC profile is selected -"Blend ICC highlights with matrix".

I am finding the recent posts in this thread to be quite interesting. About a year ago, I attempted to use Raw Therapee on my Mac, because I had read a number of positive comments from knowledgeable people. To say the least, the experiment did not go well. Leaving aside stability issues,

...

I would also echo a previous endorsement of RPP. It is simply the best raw convertor out there and it is worth running a Mac simulation mode on Windows just to be able to use it IMO. But RPP is not a comprehensive photo editor, which is what so many people want nowadays.

Rob

I am a Mac user and have tried to get a useable version of RT to deliver output, mostly with results that are promising but typically had color management issues. The Mac compilation and development appears to lag the PC/Linux version as well.

I always like trying new applications and comparing the performance, etc. I, like Rob, am a devoted RPP user but I still like variety. For Mac folks interested in a useable version of RT v4.0.9, try the compilation history detailed here:

I downloaded the latest version for the Mac for my Mac Mini OS 10.6.8 and the installer acted quirky and when I finally launched the app the interface was messed up. Red 'X's all over the place. It was functional and I could do some editing but it just acted pretty clunky.

I'm not putting any more time into this and I'm not interested in troubleshooting it either. Just not worth it.

There were challenges in producing the Mac builds due to redesign and optimization of the build process. The official RawTherapee build, including the Mac version, is being planned for December this year.

RT is *not* trying to be Lightroom. I find RT as a versatile tool-set that one can use and improve without waiting for the development cycle of Lightroom.It took Lightroom 3 years to go from version 3 to version 4. RT changes are available in real time to those who compile code themselves, and you get to observe project as it is evolving.So when you are comparing RT to Lightroom, it becomes an unfair comparison as RT is still in transition state being further polished to be more accessible to a broader user base.

About the highlight reconstruction - it is significantly superior in the version 4+ vs any prior versions. There are 4 methods available, try Color Propagation - the slowest but the most powerful.You need to use highlight reconstruction in combination with Highlight recovery and in some cases (depending on camera model and its color matrix or a DCP profile) raw white point.Some time ago the use of input camera ICC profiles was also made compatible with Highlight Reconstruction via a checkbox in Color Management, where ICC profile is selected -"Blend ICC highlights with matrix".

I haven't looked at a version of RT for quite some time. I saw this thread had popped up to the top again so decided to have a read. When I'd looked at RT in the past it looked very interesting and seemed to do a pretty good job but was missing some important features and functionality.

I do have to agree with what others have said about development. Pushing features and functionality into a piece of software almost willy-nilly isn't a good approach. Particularly if there's little to no documentation to provide support for users.

As an outsider, reading a number of these recent posts what it looks like to me is that RT is really becoming an application by developers for developers. I don't think that's unusual in an open-source, 'crowd sourced' application. Michael, look at your response here about highlight recovery. Four different ways to approach highlight recovery? "Blend ICC highlights with matrix"? How many non-coder end users are going to know what that means?

Reading these past number of comments it seems that folks are right. RT is being developed without a plan and without forethought. It seems as though the approach is that there are a bunch of coders sitting around saying 'oh, this would be really cool', then they all go off and compile their own version of the code with their 'cool' thing, submit it and everything is being incorporated into a public release without thought or care to whether what's 'cool' to a developer would be useful or necessary to an end user.

Yes, it took 3 years to go from LR3 to LR4. But look at what you get. You get a well thought out (yes, some people disagree with this), well organised piece of software with a very good user interface. Fast isn't necessarily better. And in the end, if the software is released helter-skelter without a plan and without thought as to end user efficiency then you risk losing end users. You risk not having a viable market if, at some point, there is a decision made to have people pay for the software.

... Particularly if there's little to no documentation to provide support for users. ...Michael, look at your response here about highlight recovery. Four different ways to approach highlight recovery? "Blend ICC highlights with matrix"? How many non-coder end users are going to know what that means? ...

Hi Bob, here is the quote from the RT documentation:

Blend ICC highlights with matrixEnable to recover blown highlights when using LUT based ICC profiles. Not needed for DCP profiles.This function merges the imprecise, but recoverable highlights from the DCRAW standard matrix profile into the precise ICC picture. So the color precision is reduced there, but the highlights are available. Note that this only works correctly with RTs default profile, since the (RT DCRAW embedded) matrix must match the ICC profile.

Highlight ReconstructionUse this tool to try to restore blown-out highlights. It attempts to restore clipped (blown-out) channels in the raw data using nearby data from unclipped channels, if present.Please note that you need to set “Highlight recovery amount” in the exposure section to see the effect of the reconstruction.Four different methods are available:

Color PropagationColor Propagation tries to restore the color information in addition to luminosity. This is the most powerful recovery method, although it may sometimes 'guess’' the incorrect colors, depending on the image elements surrounding the blown highlights. Note that 'Color Propagation' is computationally intensive and is therefore slower. This method has been much improved since 3.0 and it will render differently than before.

Thanks, Michael. As I indicated earlier, it looks like a 'by developers, for developers' project. A good bit of that extract would be gobbledygook to a lot of end users, I'd think.

Hi Bob,

While I agree, I vastly perfer it over; You can choose from 1 method, and also when even offered a choice of method 1, 2 and 3, but without concise explanation. Sure it is by developers, but it's also for everybody who knows a bit more about what they are trying to achieve, not only developers.It offers a good Raw conversion, and a lot of features that are sorely missed in the larger commercial offerings.

Besides, it's free, so complaining about the development cycle seems a bit misplaced/unfair (unless one is a contributor who invests some effort, and has earned a right to complain).

I downloaded the latest version for the Mac for my Mac Mini OS 10.6.8 and the installer acted quirky and when I finally launched the app the interface was messed up. Red 'X's all over the place. It was functional and I could do some editing but it just acted pretty clunky.

I'm not putting any more time into this and I'm not interested in troubleshooting it either. Just not worth it.

It may be technical, but it isn't aimed at software developers ... But rather advanced digital photographers who are well-versed in the processing of RAW data into images.

I agree. I do not use RT regularly, but when interested in trying different approaches to processing raw data, this application provides a lot more access to the under-the-hood aspects of raw processing than other applications. Of course there are other raw conversion utilities out there for folks who simply want to convert their images and likely most people have their tool of choice. If you are not inclined to use the experimental and nuts and bolts aspects of RT, you probably won't make a huge effort to get it to work for you and will be quickly frustrated by its quirks and developmental fits and starts. At some point, it may not be worth it to you to pursue RT, especially if you already have a comfortable workflow in another application. Different strokes for different folks.

Yeah, 'by developers, for developers' may be a bit strong, Bart. I don't really care whether I have only one option as long as that one option works well. If it doesn't, then I want more. While I know some will disagree (and I don't much care if they do), I'd put myself in the more advanced user group and I probably won't go back to take another look at RT.

As far as 'complaining', that's not what I was doing. I was expressing an opinion on the methodology that the RT community is using in developing and distributing the software and suggesting, like some others, that a more structured approach would likely be better. But I don't think it's correct to say that only developers of the software have a right to express their thoughts on the development.

I feel more comfortable waiting it out longer even way past the updated December release. I don't make for a good beta tester.

I'm curious about other Raw converters as well mainly to check for better image quality in the sharpening and color department over ACR. Examining side by side comparison samples between ACR and RT at dpreview peaked my interest.

I'll come back maybe a year later and try it again.

RT is not the only third party RC that has Mac issues.

I had to wait for SilkyPix RC for my Pentax DSLR to catch up for the Mac several years ago. I just gave up on it back then until several days ago when I finally found an updated version for my newer Mac Mini running Snow Leopard and downloaded (using a "proof of license" hack by renaming a loaded SD card so I didn't have to install the old one off the CD) and played around editing some PEFs. Nice to find it runs a whole lot faster without video artifacts and crashing as the original SilkyPix did in Tiger.

However, ACR still kicks its butt when it comes to speed, image quality, organization, simplicity and features.

There were challenges in producing the Mac builds due to redesign and optimization of the build process. The official RawTherapee build, including the Mac version, is being planned for December this year.

When the official Mac version is released, I will probably take it for a test run. While I do not consider myself a technical wizard, I am pretty good at coaxing high quality output from the software that I use regularly. I can accept RT having some features that are comprehensible only to those with very high technical skill levels, but at the very least, it must also have basic features that are comprehensible to the vastly larger number of users with only moderate skill levels. Believe me, if I can get results that equal or exceed RPP+PS, then I will be both pleased and surprised.

I did. The generic icons are replaced by real ones, but it still crashes when I double-click a thumbnail to open the image. Looking forward to the official Mac release in december.BTWReading the manual, I saw things I never saw before."ICC/DCP Specific Daylight White Balance ValuesThe daylight white balance temperature values used by your camera and commonly referred to in literature and on the internet are averages. The precise temperature and tint combination you should use for daylight photos is specific to the ICC or DCP input profile auto-matched to your camera by RawTherapee. This will give you a technically color-accurate image where whites are white, though aesthetically it may not be what you want."For the Canon 5D, the values are given as temp 4994, tint 0998.I have 2 questions:1- "The precise temperature and tint combination you should use for daylight photos is specific to the ICC or DCP input profile auto-matched to your camera by RawTherapee"Does this mean that RT enters these values automatically, or that I shall enter them manually? (If and when I get the Mac version up and running, or grit my teeth and use Windows)?2-What would the values be for the Canon 5D2?Curious - Hening